For my workflow the DAM software works. The OP will have to figure out what best works for them, just providing an option that works for this user.
With your workflow, how would you find all pictures of "Susie" spanned over 12 years for say a slideshow at a wedding?
If you workflow wouldn't require that, clearly there are systems that are going to work better based on the desired output.
I actually just started printing images that were otherwise "locked" on my computer, and no one else ever got to see them when they were there.
I created a Collection called Print For Grandma, put all images that contained my wife's grandmother and cropped and exported then sent to an online photo printing company.
My sister-in-law wanted a copy of those and any other images I had of her kids, so a quick filter for her kids, added to that Collection and I now had them ready to print.
I don't know that I would have known which date I took pictures of the niece and nephew without that tool.
But again, Lightroom is just one more option for the OP.
As a curiosity, do you have a scrapbook for each person, and as a result, if "Susie" and "Steve" were in one picture taken in 2006, do you have that same picture in "Susie's Scrapbook" and "Steve's Scrapbook"?